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How to Correct a Vocal Pitch in a Track

For the contemporary musician and producer, modern audio tools and techniques available provide extensive opportunities for refining and tweaking musical products. Pitch correction and auto-tune tools allow recording artists to subtly adjust their vocal tracks, removing pitch inconsistencies and other tonal discrepancies. These tools have become essential elements for commercial record producers seeking to create viable, appealing musical commodities. Installing and utilizing auto-tune and pitch correction plug-ins is a quick and simple process.

Things You'll Need

  • Computer
  • Digital audio workstation
  • Pitch correction plug-in
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Instructions

    • 1

      Download a third-party pitch correction plug-in such as the Antares Auto-Tune, Waves Tune or Mu Technologies Mu Voice. These software packages interact with your preferred digital audio workstation, or DAW, and incorporate their own unique features into the DAW's main interface.

    • 2

      Open your preferred DAW and select the track for enhancing. Assign the pitch correction plug-in to the track using the track assignment features included with your DAW. In Logic, for example, select the plug-in from the expandable menu within the channel features on the left side of the screen.

    • 3

      Locate the individual pitch within the track's waveform if you would like to make specific, minute corrections as opposed to a broad improvement. Typically, you will need to zoom in significantly in order to observe individual syllables and words within the waveform diagram. Raise the "cents" of the vocal track to gently nudge the pitch higher or lower. Add or subtract a "semitone" from the recording in order to raise or lower the designated sound sample by one note.

    • 4

      Select the exact reference pitches you wish to apply to your waveform using the chord or keyboard tools associated with your tuning plug-in. If, for example, you exclude the note "C#" from your pitch correction utility, pitches with 49 cents of "C" will be adjusted to this note. Pitches 50 to 99 cents above "C" will be shifted to "D." This method of adjustment can create dramatic tuning effects in your production.

Digital Music

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